The U.S. ambassador to Iraq said Monday that Iraqi authorities have informed him that kidnapped American journalist Jill Carroll is alive and they are optimistic about her release. Zalmay Khalilzad said he had spoken with Iraq's interior minister "and he said that based on the information that he has, that she is alive and that they have information with regard to where she might be held." Khalilzad told Fox News the minister was "optimistic about her release." The news comes a day after the deadline set Carroll's kidnappers in a message this month to a Kuwaiti television station passed without any new message from her abductors. Meanwhile, sectarian violence appeared to be receding throughout the country and Sunni Arabs signaled they may be ready to return to talks to form a new Iraqi government. ... http://www.cbsnews.com

Iraqi Interior Ministry forces have captured a senior aide to al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraqi state television said on Monday. Iraqiya named the man as Abu Farouq and said he was captured with five others in the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Ramadi, west of the capital. It said Abu Farouq al-Suri, previously unknown to the media, was captured by the Wolf Brigade, one of several counter-insurgency units operating within the Shi'ite-run Interior Ministry but accused by Sunnis of targeting civilians in their community. The word Suri is Arabic for Syrian, indicating that the captured man may have come from Iraq's western neighbor. This man must have more Aides than he can count for it seems that every time a crisis happens we have another of his Aides captured or killed. ...http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060227/ts_nm/iraq_qaeda_capture_dc

Iran's president said Monday that his country supports calls for making the Middle East a nuclear arms-free zone, but he also urged the United States and Russia to give up all their atomic weapons as a threat to the region's stability. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did not mention an agreement in principle reached Sunday by Iran and Russia to move Iran's uranium enrichment work to Russian soil, which would allow closer international monitoring of Tehran's suspect nuclear program. Although the details still must be negotiated, the deal was seen as a potential breakthrough in Kremlin efforts to ease international pressures on Iran over its nuclear program, but it was not clear the Tehran regime is willing to give up all enrichment work. The Iranians insist their program has only the peaceful purpose of developing technology for generating electricity, disputing suspicions in the United States and other Western countries that the project is a cover for work to develop atomic weapons. ...http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1666832&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

The first European farmer to be hit by an outbreak of bird flu has described how he was shocked to discover 400 of his flock of turkeys had dropped dead in one night. The confirmation of the first H5N1 virus at a commercial farm in the EU has thrown France's €6bn (£4.1bn) poultry industry into chaos. Yesterday another case of bird flu was reported in Germany's Brandenburg province and Swiss authorities confirmed their first cases of bird flu but were carrying out further tests to establish if the birds had the H5N1 strain. France also reported that H5N1 had killed another 15 wild swans in the southeast. Daniel Clair was forced to destroy his flock of 11,000 turkeys after the deaths on Thursday at his farm in the Ain region of south-east France. "I found 400 bodies and the others were already very sick," he told the newspaper Le Parisien. "It struck like lightning." A 3km (1.9-mile) protection ring - inside a 10km observation zone - has been thrown around the farm. ...http://www.guardian.co.uk/birdflu/story/0,,1718619,00.html

The Mexican government and military committed "crimes against humanity" in the so-called "dirty war" against left-wing rebels, a leaked report says. The report was prepared for current President Vicente Fox but has not been released. A US NGO has printed material saying Mexicans had a right to know. The army kidnapped, tortured and killed hundreds of rebel suspects, says the report, which covers 1964 to 1982. Mexico's special prosecutor says the report is biased and has been revised. The draft report's authors write: "The authoritarian attitude with which the Mexican state wished to control social dissent created a spiral of violence which... led it to commit crimes against humanity, including genocide." They say they base their findings partly on declassified military, police and interior ministry documents and list for the first time the names of officers allegedly involved in the abuses. ...http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4755682.stm

The Supreme Court refused Monday to directly consider whether the drug combination used in executions across the country amounts to unconstitutional cruel punishment.The justices had already agreed to hear arguments in April in a case brought by Florida death row inmate Clarence Hill about the procedure for lethal injection challenges to be filed in federal court.Monday’s decision, which came on a separate appeal by Hill’s lawyer, has little practical significance because Hill’s other case is still pending....http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11590821/from/RSS/